THE MOST PIERCING QUESTION from the Watergate scandal was “What did the president know, and when did he know it?” The most piercing question from the El Salvador deportation scandal might be, “What did we all know and what did we do about it?”
It became clear not long after the Trump administration deported more than 250 Venezuelans in March to an El Salvador megaprison that they would be abused, tortured, or worse. The White House surely knew it. So did administration officials, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who staged a repugnant photo op at the prison. So too did members of Congress in both parties. News organizations reported on conditions at the prison within days. We all knew what would happen to these men.
So it was with a pit in my stomach that I read the haunting Washington Post article aptly titled “Welcome to Hell” reporting on what was done to Andry José Hernández Romero, 32, at CECOT. Now out of prison—he and most of the other 250 Venezuelans were suddenly released last month and sent to Venezuela—he recounted for the Post his harrowing experience. He was beaten and tortured for months, he said, and when he attempted to soothe a throbbing headache by bathing, four guards entered with their clubs and sexually assaulted him, forcing him to perform oral sex.
The former inmates said they couldn’t see the sun but could sometimes hear the rain. They described CECOT as a place fit for animals, designed to make a person crazy or suicidal.
Human rights organizations believe the prisoners’ treatment at CECOT violated the United Nations Convention Against Torture, to which both the United States and El Salvador are parties. Such violent treatment, paired with sexual assault and forced disappearances, “if proved to be systematic” and “known to the government, can all constitute crimes against humanity,” the Post article notes. An international panel is reportedly now investigating whether a criminal case should be pursued.
Andry is now reunited with his family in Venezuela. His life in the United States is probably over. What’s done can’t be undone. But what comes next? What do we owe him, and the 250 others who were thrown into that hellhole? The question is not just should he be apologized to and compensated for being a victim of this national shame, but how, and by whom?